I don't think Michelle Malkin has any idea what "political payback" means

She was on Fox News last night, hating on the Chicago Olympic bid, going on and on about how Obama lobbying for the 2016 Games is really just "political payback" for Mayor Daley. If this were sane analysis, Malkin would be suggesting that Obama had benefited greatly in the past from Daley's political largess, and that lobbying on behalf of the Chicago Olympic bid was a way to repay Daley for the many political gifts he'd given Obama over the years.

But of course it's Michelle Malkin we're talking about, and she seems to have no idea what the political relationship between Daley and Obama has been over the years. Instead, by "political payback," and the all the talk of Chicago "cronies" and "corruption," what she's really saying is Obama is from Chicago and he knows political players there. Period.

If Malkin or anybody else at Fox News was the least bit interested in the facts (don't laugh!) about the Daley/Obama relationship, then they can turn to this 2008 Chicago Tribuneblog post by David Medall [emphasis added]:

What's also true, however, is that through most of Obama's political career in Chicago he operated on the fringes of the political machine and never fully immersed himself in the belly of its operations. Obama's message of inclusion, his attention to the plight of the less fortunate, and his personal sense of morality--these aspects of Obama's character made him a favorite among reformers such as the former federal judge Abner Mikva and Cook County commissioner Forrest Claypool.

Even though he was a state legislator from the city, Obama made sure to maintain a safe distance from Mayor Richard M. Daley and his cronies. When Obama's wife, Michelle, told her husband that she was considering working in city hall, Obama waved yellow caution flags because he worried that Michelle was too straightforward and straight-talking for the backroom dealing of the Daley administration.

In my first extended interview with Obama in December 2003, I asked him to define his relationship with the mayor. Obama winced and paused before finally responding, "Cordial, not close." Since then, Obama has grown far chummier with Daley, but nothing more accurately sums up the ties between Obama and the vaunted Chicago Machine than his own words way back then: "Cordial, not close."

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EricBoehlert
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A Senior Fellow for Media Matters, Boehlert is the author of Bloggers On the Bus: How The Internet Changes Politics and the Press, and Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush. Previously, he wrote on staff for Salon and Rolling Stone.

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